Humanity will look back on November 4, 2016, as the day that countries of the world shut the door on inevitable climate disaster and set off with determination towards a sustainable future.

The Paris Climate Change Agreement – the result of the most complex, comprehensive and critical international climate negotiation ever attempted – came into force today.

The Agreement is undoubtedly a turning point in the history of common human endeavor, capturing the combined political, economic and social will of governments, cities, regions, citizens, business and investors to overcome the existential threat of unchecked climate change.

Its early entry into force is a clear political signal that all the nations of the world are devoted to decisive global action on climate change.

Next week’s UN climate change conference in Marrakech represents a new departure for the international community, and the first meeting of the Paris Agreement’s governing body, known as the CMA, will take place during it on November 15.

This is a moment to celebrate. It is also a moment to look ahead with sober assessment and renewed will over the task ahead.

In a short time – and certainly in the next 15 years – we need to see unprecedented reductions in greenhouse gas emissions and unequalled efforts to build societies that can resist rising climate impacts.

The timetable is pressing because globally greenhouse gas emissions which drive climate change and its impacts are not yet falling – a fact which the Marrakech meeting must have at the front of its concerns and collective resolve.

This means that the world is not nearly on track to meet the Paris Agreement’s primary goal to limit global warming well below 2°C and as close to 1.5°C as possible to prevent dangerous climate tipping points, beyond which we may lose the ability to control the outcome.

Paris delivered a gift of hope for every man, woman and child on the planet. Yet today’s celebration can also rest on the assurance that the policies, technology and finance to achieve these goals not only exist, but are being deployed as never before.

The Paris Agreement swept into force on an unprecedented wave of action and pledges to build a global renewable energy industry, clean up existing power, production, construction and agricultural sectors and re-engineer economies and societies to be more resilient to the climate impacts already in the system.

Our collective ability to enact rapid change has changed for good because of the Paris Agreement, and particularly for the following reasons:

In Paris, Governments formally accepted to lead climate action and presented a global set of national plans for immediate action, pledging never to lower efforts and to raise their ambition over time. They are now accountable and have the means to drive change even faster through more, stronger, climate-friendly policies and incentives.

Within a few short years –ideally no later than 2018 – governments and parties will have completed the details of a rulebook which will measure, account for and review global climate action. This will ensure transparency on all sides needed to accelerate climate action by making sure that everyone is involved in the effort and is delivering to the best of their abilities.

Furthermore, Governments agreed to strengthen adequate technology and financial support to developing nations so they can build their own sustainable, clean energy futures.

Finally and importantly, non-party stakeholders are showing increased interest and commitment to lowering the carbon emissions and supporting governments and parties in their fight against the dire effects of climate change.

We expect the Marrakech COP 22 conference to accelerate work on the rulebook and to see emerge a definable pathway for developed countries to materialize the flow of USD $100 billion per year by 2020 in support of climate action by developing ones.

Very large-scale reallocations of investment are necessary. UN estimates show that achieving sustainable development will require USD $5-7 trillion a year, a large slice of which must fund the transition to a low-carbon, resilient world economy. To fulfill these investment needs, we will need to look at creative funding options, beyond the traditional ones and in which both public and private sector flows are aligned and scaled-up.

This, too, is happening but needs to speed up. UN data show global financial flows over the past few years ratcheting up to the point where one trillion dollars a year should be achievable in the near future. This means governments, the multilateral and the private sector raising and allocating tens of billions of dollars at a time towards climate investments.

The foundations of the Paris Agreement are solid and other key features of humanity’s new home are starting to rise. Yet, we cannot and we must not rest until the roof is in place. This November in Marrakesh we will make sure it will be in place, sooner rather than later.

]]>http://2celsius.net/paris-agreement-enters-into-force/feed/0China and US Bring Early Paris Entry into Force Big Step Closerhttp://2celsius.net/china-and-us-bring-early-paris-entry-into-force-big-step-closer/
http://2celsius.net/china-and-us-bring-early-paris-entry-into-force-big-step-closer/#respondSat, 03 Sep 2016 19:24:59 +0000http://2celsius.net/?p=1402Ratification of the Paris Climate Change Agreement by China and the United States – the world’s top two emitters of greenhouse gases – has brought its rapid entry into force a big step closer, reads an UNFCCC press release.

“I would like today to thank China and the United States for ratifying this landmark agreement—an agreement on which rests the opportunity for a sustainable future for every nation and every person,” said Patricia Espinosa, Executive Secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).

“The earlier that Paris is ratified and implemented in full, the more secure that future will become, “she added.

The Paris Agreement enters into force on the 30th day after the date on which at least 55 Parties to the Convention accounting in total for at least an estimated 55 % of total global emissions have deposited their instruments of ratification, acceptance, approval or accession with the UN Depositary, in New York.

Today’s announcement by President Barack Obama and President Xi Jinping, in which both countries have announced they have deposited their instruments of ratification with the UN Secretary-General, puts the balance at just over 39 percent of the global total, based on the information from countries provided to the UN in accordance with the decision related to entry into force of the Paris Agreement.

“Bringing the Paris Agreement into force underlines that the momentum and international solidarity witnessed in 2015 continues into 2016 among big and small nations and among rich and poorer countries,” said Ms Espinosa.

“The UN Secretary General’s special event in New York on 21 September offers a further, focused opportunity for others to join this wave of ambition and optimism towards a better and sustainable world,” she added.

HFCs and Aviation

China and the United States also announced today that they were working together to secure a comprehensive and ambitious amendment of a sister treaty—the Montreal Protocol—when governments meet in Kigali, Rwanda in October.

The amendment is aimed at managing down the use of chemicals called Hydroflurocarbons (HFCs) that are now being used in refrigeration systems such as air conditioners and which are potent greenhouse gases in their own right.

The two countries said they wanted to secure not only an internationally-agreed phase-down of HFCs but an early ‘freeze’ date so that the phase-down starts sooner rather than later.

Meanwhile the United States and Chinese leaders also announced backing for action on aviation emissions under the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) at its meeting later this month.

Under ICAO, governments will decide whether to agree a market-based mechanism that can assist in encouraging aircraft operators to bring down greenhouse gases from planes.

China and the United States said today that they plan to be early participants in a voluntary pilot phase if the decision goes through at the ICAO conference.

“I would like to commend China and the US for these two additional announcements. While the Paris Agreement is the main vehicle for action on climate change, it is clear that all international agreements need to work in tandem in order to realize our shared goals and aims,” she said.

The new announcements by China and the United States come in advance of the G20 Summit and the next round of UN climate negotiations—known as COP22—to be held in Marrakech, Morocco in November.

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon invited leaders from all countries to New York to deposit their instruments of ratification, acceptance, approval or accession. The event also provides an opportunity to any country to publicly commit to do so.

In his invitation, Mr Ban said: “The next step in our collective journey to a low-carbon, climate-resilient future is to ensure the rapid entry into force of the Paris Agreement.”

The objective of the Paris Agreement is to limit global warming well below 2°C and as close to 1.5°C as possible, to increase economic and social ability to adapt to extreme climate, and to direct the scale and speed of global financial flows to match the required path to very low-emission, climate-resilient development.

Along with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction, Paris forms part of a new and universal vision for a sustainable future around which the global community converged in 2015.

The unity of common purpose captured across these three agreements will now need to leverage an unprecedented scale and depth of national and international cooperative action involving all actors at all levels and in all regions of the world.

]]>http://2celsius.net/china-and-us-bring-early-paris-entry-into-force-big-step-closer/feed/0Paris Signing Marks Critical Next Step to Sustainable Futurehttp://2celsius.net/paris-signing-marks-critical-next-step-to-sustainable-future/
http://2celsius.net/paris-signing-marks-critical-next-step-to-sustainable-future/#respondWed, 20 Apr 2016 16:41:11 +0000http://2celsius.net/?p=1356The record number of countries set to sign the Paris Agreement in New York on April 22 signals the next step towards the Agreement coming into force and a critical juncture in a global effort to ensure lasting hopes for secure and peaceful, human development, reads an UNFCCC press release.

UN chief Ban Ki-moon’s dictum that our generation is the first that can end poverty but the last that can act to avoid the worst climate change speaks to the fact that cutting greenhouse gas emissions in time to prevent unmanageable rises in temperature is the one assurance of keeping those hopes on track.

“More carbon in the atmosphere equals more poverty. We cannot deliver sustainable development without tackling climate change, and we cannot tackle climate change without addressing the root causes of poverty, inequality and unsustainable development patterns,” said Christiana Figueres, Executive Secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).

Ms Figueres will moderate a debate with Segolene Royal, French Minister of Ecology, Sustainable Development and Energy and President of the 21st Conference of the Parties to the UN climate convention in front of an invited audience, on the margins of the General Assembly meeting on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) on Thursday April 21.

The realisation that climate change and development are solvable only when seen as inseparable is articulated in the 2030 Sustainable Development Agenda, agreed by nations last September at the UN in New York.

Achievement of the Paris Agreement’s climate goals calls for unprecedented rates of decarbonisation. The short 15 years to 2030 will need to deliver unprecedented outcomes in terms of global well-being and poverty eradication.

Nothing less will do than a massive global transformation to clean energy, restored lands and societies pre-proofed against existing climate change.

“Key actors across government, the private sector and civil society are shaping their vision on how they can best contribute to that objective. We have a short window of opportunity to align strategies and to sharpen the focus on the urgency of implementation. Strategic approaches developed this year will shape the overall path for years to come,” said Ms Figueres.

The SDGs not only contain a distinct climate change goal (#13), but climate action is also integral to the successful implementation of most of the other SDGs under the agenda.

This works in three fundamental ways that underpin the relation between the nature of the climate change threat and aspirations for a better, safer, fairer future.

Climate and development are locked together through basic cause and effect, by the need for an unprecedented transformation to a low-carbon economy and through the demanding timetable of action necessary to stay well below a 2 degrees Celsius temperature rise, with 1.5 degrees identified in the Paris Agreement as an even safer line of defence.

These three factors affect every goal.

Climate Impacts Eat Away at Every Positive Human Goal

It will clearly be impossible to end poverty in all its forms (Goal #1), if temperatures are allowed to spiral out of control—emissions need to peak globally in the next decade followed by a rapid decline, ending in a state before 2100 where natural sinks like forests absorb the balance of human emissions.

New investment especially must be directed at priorities which target both climate and sustainability with indicators underpinning all the SDGs in mind including climate

A classic example is investments in land restoration and forests. Forest cover not only absorbs carbon dioxide but stabilizes soils, recycles nutrients, manages and feeds river flows and harbours treasure troves of biodiversity including pollinators – services which are all essential to alleviate poverty, sustain healthy agriculture and protect species.

The poorest and most marginalised people and communities, often women and children, are already being hit hardest by climate impacts, which are preventing them from attaining a decent quality of life or enjoying their basic human rights.

Climatic changes are undermining food and nutrition security, keeping poor people in poverty traps, and throwing back entire economies for years.

The Philippines, Dominica and Fiji are just some countries which can recently attest to the devastating impact of extreme storms.

Impacts on agriculture have a rapid knock-on effect on poverty. Under a scenario with lower crop yields, countries like Bangladesh could experience a 15 percent increase in poverty by 2030.

Water resources are also at risk, as many expected climate impacts are water-related, such as floods and droughts. Sanitation and water quality are both threatened as storm run-off adds to sewage and could contaminate water supplies.

The global insurance industry has already warned that a world drifting into the temperature spaces above 2 degrees would become, quite literally, uninsurable.

Sustainability Demands Rapid Progress to Low-Carbon State

At the heart of the goals which promote sustainable development in energy, economic and jobs growth, industry and infrastructure (Goals 7,8 and 9) is the overwhelming requirement that it is done within a rapid transformation towards low-carbon solutions.

This transformation relies heavily on getting low-carbon technology and investment deployed now because whatever we invest in today – be it power plant, road, bridge, or tiny widget or component – can lock-in the emissions of that investment for its lifetime.

The point where human economic life becomes uninsurable is also the point at which extreme climate impacts start to disrupt or destroy industries, structures, supply chains and farming.

A significant resource for both governments and business to gauge how returns on climate and development investments can be maximised together lies in the almost universal set of national climate action plans which are now to be captured in legal form under the Paris Agreement.

The plans are, in essence, blueprints of policy, actions and investment to take climate action, suited to the individual economic needs of each country. Almost by definition, they are also a roadmap towards more sustainable national futures.

Inequality, Ignorance and Injustice Kill Effective Climate Action

The remaining goals which look to achieve equality, education and justice for all will also fail unless that aspiration includes equal opportunity to take climate action, knowledge and skills on how to do so and a just protection from the impacts of climate change within and between nations.

For example, ensuring women’s full and effective participation and equal opportunities for leadership at all levels of decision-making in political, economic and public life has been shown to be a particularly effective catalyst of climate action, including in poorest, most vulnerable countries.

Climate change impacts inequality because the most disadvantaged groups are particularly affected by climate hazards. It is a known statistic that when they are socially or economically disadvantaged, more women die in hurricanes and floods.

“There is no longer climate action and development action, only sustainable, low-carbon action,” said Christiana Figueres. “Growth can and must be decoupled from fossil fuel consumption and impacts.”

“The only plausible path after Paris is to direct human ingenuity, innovation and implementation towards sustainable, low-carbon growth and development.”

In its conclusions, the Foreign Affairs Council also mentions other diplomatic fora where the EU will focus on addressing emissions, including the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), the International Maritime Organization (IMO), and the Montreal Protocol negotiations on the hydrofluorocarbons (HFC) amendment.

On the interconnection between climate diplomacy and international development cooperation with third countries, the Council notes the importance of taking into account synergies between climate objectives, such as those adopted by Parties to the UNFCCC in the Paris Agreement in December 2015, and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) adopted in September 2015 by the UN General Assembly (UNGA) as part of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

The Council’s conclusions further identify risks and threats exacerbated by climate change that impact the EU’s security and human rights work, such as resource scarcity, forced migration, food security, spread of epidemic disease, social and economic instability and gender inequality.

Ministers identified specific actions for each of the three strands of climate diplomacy agreed to by the Council. In terms of climate change advocacy in diplomatic dialogues, public diplomacy and external policy instruments, the EU will work to, inter alia: prevent backsliding in fora such as the Group of Seven (G7), the Group of Twenty (G20) and the UN; agree on a global market based mechanism to govern future international aviation greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions; approve a global data collection system for fuel consumption and GHG emissions from international shipping; and enhance collective public diplomacy through, for example, a ‘Climate Diplomacy Action Day’ and targeted outreach coinciding with the signing ceremony of the Paris Agreement on 22 April 2016, and the Olympic Games.

On Paris Agreement implementation, the ministers agreed to, inter alia: support partners in developing INDC implementation plans, linking them to financial and technical support where appropriate; mainstream climate diplomacy in such areas as development cooperation, neighborhood and enlargement policies, civil protection and humanitarian policy, and trade; and explore innovative mechanisms for mobilizing additional private climate finance.

With relation to the nexus of climate change, natural resources, prosperity, stability and migration, elements identified include: increasing the EU’s and member States’ involvement in the climate and security policy debate in international forums such as the UN Security Council and the G7; enhancing the inclusion of climate vulnerability analysis into fragility/security and disaster risk assessments; and continuing work on addressing the destabilizing effects of climate change in fragile States.

The Foreign Affairs Council met on 15 February 2016 in Brussels, Belgium. The Foreign Affairs Council is one configuration in which the EU Council meets. The EU Council is the institution representing member States’ governments, with national ministers convening in the ten different configurations to adopt laws and coordinate policies.

The Paris Agreement for the first time brings all nations into a common cause based on their historic, current and future responsibilities.

The universal agreement’s main aim is to keep a global temperature rise this century well below 2 degrees Celsius and to drive efforts to limit the temperature increase even further to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels.

The 1.5 degree Celsius limit is a significantly safer defense line against the worst impacts of a changing climate.

Additionally, the agreement aims to strengthen the ability to deal with the impacts of climate change.

To reach these ambitious and important goals, appropriate financial flows will be put in place, thus making stronger action by developing countries and the most vulnerable possible, in line with their own national objectives.

“The Paris Agreement allows each delegation and group of countries to go back home with their heads held high. Our collective effort is worth more than the sum of our individual effort. Our responsibility to history is immense” said Laurent Fabius, President of the COP 21 UN Climate change conference and French Foreign Minister.

The minister, his emotion showing as delegates started to rise to their feet, brought the final gavel down on the agreement to open and sustained acclamation across the plenary hall.

French President Francois Hollande told the assembled delegates: “You’ve done it, reached an ambitious agreement, a binding agreement, a universal agreement. Never will I be able to express more gratitude to a conference. You can be proud to stand before your children and grandchildren.”

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said: “We have entered a new era of global cooperation on one of the most complex issues ever to confront humanity. For the first time, every country in the world has pledged to curb emissions, strengthen resilience and join in common cause to take common climate action. This is a resounding success for multilateralism.”

Christiana Figueres, Executive Secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), said: “One planet, one chance to get it right and we did it in Paris. We have made history together. It is an agreement of conviction. It is an agreement of solidarity with the most vulnerable. It is an agreement of long-term vision, for we have to turn this agreement into an engine of safe growth.”

“Successive generations will, I am sure, mark the 12 December 2015 as a date when cooperation, vision, responsibility, a shared humanity and a care for our world took centre stage,” she said.

“I would like to acknowledge the determination, diplomacy and effort that the Government of France have injected into this remarkable moment and the governments that have supported our shared ambition since COP 17 in Durban, South Africa,” she said.

Agreement Captures Essential Elements to Drive Action Forward

The Paris Agreement and the outcomes of the UN climate conference (COP21) cover all the crucial areas identified as essential for a landmark conclusion:

Support – including finance, for nations to build clean, resilient futures

As well as setting a long-term direction, countries will peak their emissions as soon as possible and continue to submit national climate action plans that detail their future objectives to address climate change.

This builds on the momentum of the unprecedented effort which has so far seen 188 countries contribute climate action plans to the new agreement, which will dramatically slow the pace of global greenhouse gas emissions.

The new agreement also establishes the principle that future national plans will be no less ambitious than existing ones, which means these 188 climate action plans provide a firm floor and foundation for higher ambition.

Countries will submit updated climate plans – called nationally determined contributions (NDCs) – every five years, thereby steadily increasing their ambition in the long-term.

Climate action will also be taken forward in the period before 2020. Countries will continue to engage in a process on mitigation opportunities and will put added focus on adaptation opportunities. Additionally, they will work to define a clear roadmap on ratcheting up climate finance to USD 100 billion by 2020

This is further underlined by the agreement’s robust transparency and accounting system, which will provide clarity on countries’ implementation efforts, with flexibility for countries’ differing capabilities.

“The Paris Agreement also sends a powerful signal to the many thousands of cities, regions, businesses and citizens across the world already committed to climate action that their vision of a low-carbon, resilient future is now the chosen course for humanity this century,” said Ms Figueres.

Agreement Strengthens Support to Developing Nations

The Paris Agreement underwrites adequate support to developing nations and establishes a global goal to significantly strengthen adaptation to climate change through support and international cooperation.

The already broad and ambitious efforts of developing countries to build their own clean, climate-resilient futures will be supported by scaled-up finance from developed countries and voluntary contributions from other countries.

Governments decided that they will work to define a clear roadmap on ratcheting up climate finance to USD 100 billion by 2020 while also before 2025 setting a new goal on the provision of finance from the USD 100 billion floor.

Ms. Figueres said. “We have seen unparalleled announcements of financial support for both mitigation and adaptation from a multitude of sources both before and during the COP. Under the Paris Agreement, the provision of finance from multiple sources will clearly be taken to a new level, which is of critical importance to the most vulnerable.”

International cooperation on climate-safe technologies and building capacity in the developing world to address climate change are also significantly strengthened under the new agreement.

Signing the Paris Agreement

Following the adoption of the Paris Agreement by the COP (Conference of the Parties), it will be deposited at the UN in New York and be opened for one year for signature on 22 April 2016–Mother Earth Day.

The agreement will enter into force after 55 countries that account for at least 55% of global emissions have deposited their instruments of ratification.

Cities and Provinces to Companies and Investors Aligning

Today’s landmark agreement was reached against the backdrop of a remarkable groundswell of climate action by cities and regions, business and civil society.

During the week of events under the Lima to Paris Action Agenda (LPAA) at the COP, the groundswell of action by these stakeholders successfully demonstrated the powerful and irreversible course of existing climate action.

Countries at COP 21 recognised the enormous importance of these initiatives, calling for the continuation and scaling up of these actions which are entered on the UN-hosted NAZCA portal as an essential part in the rapid implementation of the Paris Agreement.

The LPAA and NAZCA have already captured climate actions and pledges covering:

Over 7,000 cities, including the most vulnerable to climate change, from over 100 countries with a combined population with one and a quarter billion people and around 32% of global GDP.

Sub-national states and regions comprising one fifth of total global land area and combined GDP of $12.5 trillion.

Over 5,000 companies from more than 90 countries that together represent the majority of global market capitalisation and over $38 trillion in revenue.

Nearly 500 investors with total assets under management of over $25 trillion

Christiana Figueres said: “The recognition of actions by businesses, investors, cities and regions is one of the key outcomes of COP 21. Together with the LPAA, the groundswell of action shows that the world is on an inevitable path toward a properly sustainable, low-carbon world.”

More Details on the Paris Agreement

All countries will submit adaptation communications, in which they may detail their adaptation priorities, support needs and plans. Developing countries will receive increased support for adaptation actions and the adequacy of this support will be assessed.

The existing Warsaw International Mechanism on Loss and Damage will be significantly strengthened.

The agreement includes a robust transparency framework for both action and support. The framework will provide clarity on countries’ mitigation and adaptation actions, as well as the provision of support. At the same time, it recognizes that Least Developed Countries and Small Island Developing States have special circumstances.

The agreement includes a global stocktake starting in 2023 to assess the collective progress towards the goals of the agreement. The stocktake will be done every five years.

The agreement includes a compliance mechanism, overseen by a committee of experts that operates in a non-punitive way.

The COP also closed on a number of technical issues.

Under the Kyoto Protocol, there is now a clear and transparent accounting method for carry-over credits for the second commitment period, creating a clear set of rules.

The first round of international assessment and review process (IAR) that was launched in 2014 was successfully completed.

A number of technical and implementation issues related to the existing arrangements on technology, adaptation, action for climate empowerment and capacity building were also successfully concluded.

About the UNFCCC

With 196 Parties, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) has near universal membership and is the parent treaty of the 1997 Kyoto Protocol. The Kyoto Protocol has been ratified by 192 of the UNFCCC Parties. For the first commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol, 37 States, consisting of highly industrialized countries and countries undergoing the process of transition to a market economy, have legally binding emission limitation and reduction commitments. In Doha in 2012, the Conference of the Parties serving as the meeting of the Parties to the Kyoto Protocol adopted an amendment to the Kyoto Protocol, which establishes the second commitment period under the Protocol. The ultimate objective of both treaties is to stabilize greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere at a level that will prevent dangerous human interference with the climate system.

A decade ago, I had the joy to meet and interview Carlo Petrini, the president of Slow Food. I thought it was another elitist concept beautifully designed for bourgeois slackers and their selective consumerism. When Petrini started talking I was stunned: it revealed that Slow Food is primarily about social justice, global development and respect for biodiversity. The uptight interview that I was preparing for turned into a friendly discussion. We talked a lot for almost an hour, building on the conclusion that food and land will not suffice on a heating planet. At the end of the meeting he offered me a copy of his book “Buono, pulito e giusto” (Good, Clean and Fair) and that night I devoured it.

In a couple of months I went to Terra Madre in Turin, an incredible gathering of food communities from all over the world, something that Petrini named “the United Nations of peasants”. Indeed, they were all present: from Inuit fishermen to Yoruba seed savers, from Guarani peons to Hindu rice cultivators. Soon after, an inspirational Food/Climate Manifesto was out and it turned into a climatic cornerstone of food security and international development.

“This is the central point, the most important cultural and political point,” Petrini stated. “Virtuous practices already exist in the cultural biodiversity of the farmers of the world. They have extraordinary knowledge and there must be a dialog with official science, an honest, frank and sincere dialog as equals.”

The manifesto is based upon the strong link between climate change and agriculture, drawing attention to the contribution to the problem by the industrial globalized food system and the potential to mitigate it by adapting to ecological and organic farming.

Indian scientist and activist Vandana Shiva, founder of NGO Navdanya, author of “Earth Democracy”, and vice-president of Slow Food International, elaborated on each of the manifesto’s nine points, providing a passionate summary of its principles. Shiva argues that as 35 percent of the climate change crisis comes from agriculture, therefore 35 percent of the solution also lies in farming and food and that we must look seriously at this vital component in analyses of climate change and discussions of possible solutions.

She argues that we must return to sustainable, local, bio-diverse systems that are better adapted to dealing with the cyclones and floods created by climate change, as well as contributing to cleaner air and water and better food.

A great green philosopher, Murray Bookchin, said “…just as capitalist farming has ‘created’ an ‘average’ agriculture, so it has created an ‘average’ farm worker. Wherever the farmer has been dispossessed by huge corporate growers, he has also been replaced by rural laborers who view the intimate problems of crop management with complete indifference.” It meant that the knowledge that local farmers conserve in order to survive, and their communities to develop, is being replaced with a poor proletariat slaving in agro-industry. Their land and the plants that they are conserving constitute the prerequisite for a less warm planet.

The issue that impedes most on reducing emissions and ensuring progress in the developing world lies in “burning food in the gas tanks”, as many critics coined the biofuel business. It turned out to be the highest issue on the UN agenda and one of the starkest brakes of international cooperation.

COP21, Paris

A climate deal in Paris is not that much about reducing industrial emissions of greenhouse gases, but more about international development. Though so far the Conferences of the Parties at the United Nations’ Framework Convention on Climate Change were mostly about cutting down on CO2, currently discussions have switched to more profound approaches: land use and land use change, green technologies for the developing world, access to knowledge, preservation of natural habitats.

The developing countries are the ones that will first be impacted by a changing climate; their poverty will impede a due mitigation and adaptation to global warming, it has usually been said. Their role is tantamount, however, and it entangles not merely the money, otherwise so much needed in order to cope with climatic challenges, but a positive “exploitation” of natural capital.

Let us not be naïve; right now, 99% of the talks and negotiations are revolving around money. Fast start funding and adaptation to climate change were at the peak of the UNFCCC agendas since the COP in Copenhagen (2009). Only the EU has to put out of the pocket around EUR 70 billion.

“We do no think that there’s a strong reason for Europe to jump forward with a new Kyoto without sorting out a number of conditions,” a EU official said. “The first one is the environmental integrity. The 20% target that Europe has adopted is much more stringent than the case of continuing simply under Kyoto. There are a number of major flaws in the Kyoto Protocol that must be sorted out before the EU can subscribe to a legally binding agreement. For instance “land – use change”, which currently means that you can just do whatever you like.”

In the light of the Millennium Development Goals, starting 2001, the international community thought of empowering developing states in maintaining their environmental sustainability, on one hand, and ensure their own energy generation while being respected players on the global market.

Two major events circled these purposes: the Marrakesh Accords in the 2001 UNFCCC COP and the biofuels business. The latter one promised that developing countries were going to be real players on the global energy market, while the Marrakesh UN meetings were building on the idea that nature preservation and land use influence the climate to a very large extent. So the global North wanted more food and more fuel. That meant that they wanted more land and the EU was preparing the ground.

How did food get into the gas tank?

The biofuels business went crazy in about 2007. The European Union’s decision to require that biofuels be added to all vehicle fuel meant there was a legally guaranteed market. Many governments were emboldened to get into biofuels after hearing George W. Bush call for a biofuels drive in his State of the Union address in January 2006. And financiers were seduced by the prospects put forth for jatropha by Goldman Sachs. They saw big profits and major development opportunities. Back then, Brazil was talking about replacing a tenth of the world’s fossil fuels with sugar ethanol. Malaysia and Indonesia both said they would set-aside up to 40 percent of future palm oil plantations for biodiesel. Even oil companies joined in. Chevron claimed to have a million acres of land set aside for biofuels in the United States. And Western entrepreneurs headed for Africa in search of cheap land to grow old-style vegetable oils, sugar for ethanol, or new wonder-crops like jatropha. NGOs counted more than a hundred biofuels projects in Africa, operated by fifty companies in twenty countries. At one stage it was estimated that such projects covered as much as 27 million acres. (Fred Pearce in “The Landgrabbers. The New Fight Over Who Owns the Earth”, Transworld Publishers, London, UK)

Fred Pearce, The Land Grabbers’ cover

Biofuels require land; a lot of it. Not many biofuels grow in deserts. If biofuels replace something else, whether a crop or natural vegetation, that has to be taken into account. The most dramatic example is oil palm. It is often grown on land formerly occupied by rain forest and carbon-rich peat bogs, writes Pearce. Clearing the forests and draining the peat bogs will create a huge carbon footprint. Taking that into account, the overall carbon footprint of biodiesel from palm oil is often much greater than that of fossil oil. Biofuels are grown on former pastures, in which case we need to know how much carbon the grass would have absorbed. They might be grown on fields that once grew food. Assuming the food now has to be grown somewhere else, we then need to know where it is grown, and what the carbon footprint of the food crop is. Maybe someone somewhere chopped down a forest to keep people fed or added extra fertilizer to another field to increase yields. Making fertilizer is an extremely energy-intensive, carbon-producing activity. Very often, answering this chain of questions may reveal that biofuels come at a carbon cost greater than the fossil fuels they replace. (Pearce, 339)

Land of Africa

Africa is the biggest hotspot for overseas land acquisitions. Out of the 203 million hectares of farmland, 134 million hectares are in Africa. Most of these land deals came right after the global food crisis form 2007-2008. The World Bank computed that acquisitions totaled almost 10 million hectares in merely four African countries (Ethiopia, Liberia, Mozambique, and Sudan – South Sudan included) during the relatively early period of 2004-2009.

Sub-Saharan Africa has over 200 million hectares of unfarmed land “suitable for cropping, non-forested, non-protected, and populated with less than 25 people per square kilometer”. The global surface of unfarmed land is around 445 million hectares.

Many African countries, despite their farmland, are acutely food insecure and depend on aid from the World Food Program (WFP). Ethiopia has received $116million in WFP food aid even while Saudi companies have grown grains on Ethiopian land for Saudi consumption.

One of the biggest and latest issues related to Africa and especially Mozambique (but also Ghana, Nigeria or the Central African Republic) is management and legal regime of the common land. Land grabbing is usually related to various forms of common property over land. Common property is the very first form of regulated property from pre-republican times in Ancient Rome. Even nowadays, most places have commons. (Pearce, 340)

Africa has got most of the land in some form of common property or ownership. Four fifths of the African continent, that is almost 2 billion hectares is owned formally by the state via its sovereignty. There are no legal titles but inhabitants regard these lands as theirs, consider themselves to be the traditional owners of not just a plot, a house or a farm, but of forests, pastures and other such collective value that fall in the domain of the community.

Indeed, pastoralists or forest dwellers and gatherers occupy a lot of the surviving commons on the planet. They spend most of their lives away from urban agglomerations, away from main roads, thus ignoring national state laws and hence state boundaries. They are not outcasts but an integral part of African [national] societies. African politicians, however, consider that “people of the commons are historical leftovers, wild people who need to be tamed and settled, brought within national laws and norms. For their good and for ours,” (Alden Wily for Fred Pearce in “The Landgrabbers. The New Fight Over Who Owns the Earth”, Transworld Publishers, London, UK, page 340)

The World Bank has named that land ‘the world’s last great reserve of underused land’, empty plots waiting for ‘development’.

Less water

“We do see a role for biofuels in climate change mitigation,” Maurits van den Berg, an agricultural policy researcher at the PBL Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency, told 2C. “From a social perspective they were associated with land grabbing, but they also create work and business opportunities in agriculture.” In short, there is no simple answer: “It depends on how it’s managed.”

Being a largely water-intensive crop, biofuels can’t be produced in arid regions. “In more humid regions you can have higher yields,” Van den Berg said. “In any case, irrigation of biofuels is not a good idea.”

The industry can also create jobs, according to Valerie Ndaruzaniye, president of the Global Water Institute. “In West-Saharan areas you can use dry lands for energy crops – nothing else can grow there,” she said. “Now we’re talking about privatization of water: if these people have an income, they will have more money to buy water in order to sustain their environment.”

Michael Scoullos, chair of the Mediterranean Region at Global Water Partnership, says there is a major carbon accounting flaw in EU legislation and consequently in international agreements: biofuels used in transport and biomass used for power generation are currently counted as “zero emissions”, which will have “immense” consequences for the environment. This is the key finding of a report published by the Scientific Committee of the European Environment Agency, a top EU advisory body. The report warned that counting biofuels and biomass as “zero emissions” is wrong because it ignores the emissions that come when the fuels are burned, assuming that this impact is automatically offset when new plants grow. In many cases, these emissions will not be offset because increased demand for land for bioenergy will displace emissions elsewhere.

UN response: the Marrakesh Accords

COP 7 (Marrakesh, October/November 2001) adopted a decision on Land Use, Land Use Change and Forestry (LULUCF) and related issues (Decision 11/CP.7). The rules for LULUCF activities, agreed as part of the Marrakesh Accords, include two main elements: a set of principles to govern LULUCF activities; four-tier capping system limiting the use of LULUCF activities to meet emission targets. It sounds techie, but it is simple in essence.

COP7 in Marrakech, 2001

The threat posed by climate change to the development gains made over recent decades demands an urgent, comprehensive and global response. Since 1992, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) has set out a framework for international action to stabilize GHG emissions to prevent dangerous climate change. The UNFCCC recognizes that developed countries have contributed the most to the global accumulation of GHG emissions, while developing countries bear less historical responsibility. This recognition has led to a commitment from developed countries to mobilize finance to help developing countries respond to climate change, and such ‘climate finance’ has become a central issue in international negotiations.

Commitments to deliver climate finance to developing countries are longstanding. Developed countries pledged to deliver finance approaching $30 billion between 2010 and 2012, in the context of a commitment to mobilize $100 billion per year from public and private sources by 2020 in the Copenhagen Accord of 2009. These commitments were affirmed in the Cancun Agreements of 2010. Thus, in the wake of COP17 in Cancun, Mexico, the start-funding started to work.

This is where COP21 in Paris kicks in.

In addition, the need to achieve ‘balanced finance’ for adaptation was recognized, with an emphasis on the needs of particularly vulnerable countries, including small-island developing states (SIDSs), least-developed countries (LDCs), and African states. It was in this context that parties agreed to create a new operating entity of the financial mechanism for the UNFCCC.

A new initiative to build climate resilience in the world’s most vulnerable countries was launched in Paris by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and 13 members within the UN system at he very beginning of the Paris Climate Conference. The new initiative will strengthen the ability of countries to anticipate hazards, absorb shocks, and reshape development to reduce climate risks.

Bringing together private sector organizations, governments, UN agencies, research institutions and other stakeholders to scale up transformative solutions, the SG’s Resilience Initiative will focus on the most vulnerable people and communities in Small Island Developing States, Least Developed Countries, and African countries.

Over the next five years, the Initiative will mobilize financing and knowledge; create and operationalize partnerships at scale, help coordinate activities to help reach tangible results, catalyze research, and develop new tools.

The Secretary-General’s Climate Resilience Initiative will support the work of partners, such as the Africa Risk Capacity, to ensure that by the time the new climate agreement enters into force in 2020, over 30 countries are provided with $2 billion in coverage against drought, flood and cyclones, including $500 million in adaptation financing. 150 million Africans will be indirectly insured.

While much of the attention at Paris is focused on reducing emissions in a bid to keep global temperature rise to less than two degrees Celsius by the end of the century, many climate impacts will continue to increase. Whether they are biodiversity loss, land management, sea level rise and other terrible events, the main big climatic adaptation issue remains poverty.

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http://2celsius.net/paris-the-place-where-we-should-stop-burning-our-food/feed/0Governments and businesses called to end fossil fuel subsidieshttp://2celsius.net/governments-and-businesses-called-to-end-fossil-fuel-subsidies/
http://2celsius.net/governments-and-businesses-called-to-end-fossil-fuel-subsidies/#respondMon, 30 Nov 2015 17:23:33 +0000http://2celsius.net/?p=1277An unprecedented coalition of close to 40 governments, hundreds of businesses and influential international organisations has called today for accelerated action to phase out fossil fuel subsidies, a move that would help bridge the gap to keep global temperature rise below 2°C.

On the opening day of the UN Conference on Climate Change (COP21), New Zealand Prime Minister John Key formally presented the Fossil Fuel Subsidy Reform Communiqué to Christiana Figueres, Executive Secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), on behalf of the Friends of Fossil Fuel Subsidy Reform, The Prince of Wales’s Corporate Leaders Group and other supporters of the Communiqué.

The Communiqué calls on the international community to increase efforts to phase out perverse subsidies to fossil fuels by promoting policy transparency, ambitious reform and targeted support for the poorest.

Governments spend over $500 billion of public resources a year to keep domestic prices for oil, gas and coal artificially low. Removing fossil fuel subsidies would reduce greenhouse gas emission by 10 per cent by 2050. It would also free up resources to invest in social and physical capital like education, healthcare and infrastructure, while leveling the playing field for renewable energy.

John Key, Prime Minister of New Zealand, said: “Fossil fuel subsidy reform is the missing piece of the climate change puzzle. It’s estimated that more than a third of global carbon emissions, between 1980 and 2010, were driven by fossil fuel subsidies. Their elimination would represent one seventh of the effort needed to achieve our target of ensuring global temperatures do not rise by more than 2°C. As with any subsidy reform, change will take courage and strong political will, but with oil prices at record lows and the global focus on a low carbon future – the timing for this reform has never been better.”

Christiana Figueres, Executive Secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), said in accepting the Communiqué: “These subsidies contribute to the inefficient use of fossil fuels, undermine the development of energy efficient technologies, act as a drag on clean, green energy deployment and in many developing countries do little to assist the poorest of the poor in the first place. The huge sums involved globally could be better spent on schools, health care, renewable energies and building resilient societies. The current, very low oil prices are a good opportunity to really get going on this issue.”

Stefan Löfven, Prime Minister of Sweden, said: “History will prove fossil fuel to be a dead end. Sweden will be amongst the first fossil free welfare nations of the world. And eliminating fossil fuel subsidies is an important step on this path.”

Hakima El Haite, Environment Minister of Morocco, candidate for the presidency of COP22, said: “Not only do fossil fuel subsidies put a strain on government coffers but they also don’t help the poorest of society.”

Philippe Joubert, Chair of The Prince of Wales’s Corporate Leaders Group and former president of Alstom Power, said: “The CLG’s long-standing efforts to put a price on carbon, including most recently working with the World Bank through the Carbon Pricing Leadership Coalition, will soon deliver results. It doesn’t make sense that, at the same time, governments artificially deflate the cost of coal, oil and gas, the primary cause of GHG emissions. Fossil fuel subsidies must be ended to stop this contradiction and enhance a real transition to low carbon energy.”

OECD Secretary-General Angel Gurría said: “Countries need to demonstrate with concrete actions and policies that they are serious about combating climate change. Reforming harmful fossil-fuel support is a good place to start.”

Close to 40 countries have endorsed the Fossil Fuel Subsidy Reform Communiqué, including Canada, Chile, France, Germany, Italy, Malaysia, Mexico, Morocco, Peru, the Netherlands, the Philippines, Samoa, the United Kingdom, the United States, Uganda and Uruguay.

The Communiqué is supported by The Prince of Wales’s Corporate Leaders Group (23 global companies employing 2 million people worldwide with combined revenues exceeding $170 billion) and other business organisations working with thousands of corporations and investors, including The B Team, the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD) and the We Mean Business coalition . The Communiqué has also been endorsed by influential international organisations including the International Energy Agency, the OECD and the World Bank.

Eliminating fossil fuel subsidies can accelerate the economic shift needed to tackle climate change and remove one of the obstacles to delivering the low-carbon future COP21 is aiming for.

]]>http://2celsius.net/governments-and-businesses-called-to-end-fossil-fuel-subsidies/feed/0World Leaders Arrive at Paris Climate Summit Amidst Record Breaking Public Calls for Strong Dealhttp://2celsius.net/world-leaders-arrive-at-paris-climate-summit-amidst-record-breaking-public-calls-for-strong-deal/
http://2celsius.net/world-leaders-arrive-at-paris-climate-summit-amidst-record-breaking-public-calls-for-strong-deal/#respondMon, 30 Nov 2015 16:48:34 +0000http://2celsius.net/?p=1273Over 130 Heads of State have arrived in Paris to kick off two weeks of negotiations which should result in a comprehensive, ambitious, and universal climate agreement, and as negotiations kick off, countries are working find accordance on key issues, reads a Climate Action Network (CAN) press release.

Revised figures show that on the weekend the biggest ever climate marches were held with over 785,000 people gathering in 175 countries to issue a strong call for climate action, and almost 1.8 million people of faith signed a petition for compassionate climate action. Around the world, public support is greater than ever for a deal that brings emissions down, helps at-risk communities adapt to climate impacts, and addresses the inevitable loss and damage from the unavoidable changes already happening in every country.

During the talks, governments will need to have productive talks and reach early breakthroughs on issues like finance, loss and damage, adaptation, and the long-term goal. Global leaders from the business, faith, national security, health, and justice communities will continue to put the pressure on the governments to turn this public momentum into political progress.

On the ground in Paris, CAN members made the following comments:

“This moment in time feels incredibly powerful and incredibly different than how it was before the Copenhagen talks, not so long ago. We have the people of the world behind us coming into this meeting, with record numbers of people from all walks of life marching in the streets. We’re at a different place in the energy sector—before Copenhagen, solar power was 50 percent more expensive. We need three things to achieve major change: an activist base, a permissive majority, and political will. We’ve got the world’s support, but we’re here to find out whether the politicians can recognize the momentum and bring political will.”

-Keya Chatterjee, USCAN

“It is the suffering of vulnerable countries that has led to us being here in Paris to tackle climate change. But the cruel irony is that, as it stands now, the Paris deal won’t be enough for them. The current pledges add up to about a 2.7 degree world, when these countries need a 1.5 degree one to survive. It’s like when a lizard’s tail is caught by a predator—it will break it off so that it can escape. These vulnerable countries are in danger of becoming the lizard’s tail, and of being sacrificed while the rest of the world escapes the perils of climate change.”

-Mohamed Adow, Christian Aid

“This won’t be a walk in the park to a new agreement. This is crunch time, and brutal negotiations are about to kick off, because lives are on the line. We need to have a long-term goal to phase out fossil fuel emissions, because we need to know where this agreement is leading us. Also, everyone knows there needs to be money on the table, but no one knows yet how much or who is going to pay. Developed countries say they want to see new countries starting to contribute, but the question is, if rich countries get signals that other countries are willing to complement their efforts, will they respond by committing to new numbers?”

-Tim Gore, Oxfam

“In Copenhagen, Heads of State arrived at the end, and all they could do was to try and stop a sinking ship. That ship is no longer sinking. The 150 Heads of States in Paris today have the opportunity to be the compass and provide the wind for our sails, that will lead this ship to a safer climate future. The destination is clear: keeping average temperature increase well below 20C to have a chance to avoid irreversible impacts for planet and humanity.”

Human influence on the climate system is clear. This is evident in most regions of the globe, a new assessment by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) concludes.

It is extremely likely that human influence has been the dominant cause of the observed warming since the mid-20th century. The evidence for this has grown, thanks to more and better observations, an improved understanding of the climate system response and improved climate models.

Warming in the climate system is unequivocal and since 1950 many changes have been observed throughout the climate system that are unprecedented over decades to millennia. Each of the last three decades has been successively warmer at the Earth’s surface than any preceding decade since 1850, reports the Summary for Policymakers of the IPCC Working Group I assessment report, Climate Change 2013: the Physical Science Basis, approved on Friday by member governments of the IPCC in Stockholm, Sweden.

“Observations of changes in the climate system are based on multiple lines of independent evidence. Our assessment of the science finds that the atmosphere and ocean have warmed, the amount of snow and ice has diminished, the global mean sea level has risen and the concentrations of greenhouse gases have increased,” said Qin Dahe, Co-Chair of IPCC Working Group I.

Thomas Stocker, the other Co-Chair of Working Group I said: “Continued emissions of greenhouse gases will cause further warming and changes in all components of the climate system. Limiting climate change will require substantial and sustained reductions of greenhouse gas emissions.”

“Global surface temperature change for the end of the 21st century is projected to be likely to exceed 1.5°C relative to 1850 to 1900 in all but the lowest scenario considered, and likely to exceed 2°C for the two high scenarios,” said Co-Chair Thomas Stocker. “Heat waves are very likely to occur more frequently and last longer. As the Earth warms, we expect to see currently wet regions receiving more rainfall, and dry regions receiving less, although there will be exceptions,” he added.

Projections of climate change are based on a new set of four scenarios of future greenhouse gas concentrations and aerosols, spanning a wide range of possible futures. The Working Group I report assessed global and regional-scale climate change for the early, mid-, and later 21st century.

“As the ocean warms, and glaciers and ice sheets reduce, global mean sea level will continue to rise, but at a faster rate than we have experienced over the past 40 years,” said Co-Chair Qin Dahe. The report finds with high confidence that ocean warming dominates the increase in energy stored in the climate system, accounting for more than 90% of the energy accumulated between 1971 and 2010.

Co-Chair Thomas Stocker concluded: “As a result of our past, present and expected future emissions of CO2, we are committed to climate change, and effects will persist for many centuries even if emissions of CO2 stop.”

Rajendra Pachauri, Chair of the IPCC, said: “This Working Group I Summary for Policymakers provides important insights into the scientific basis of climate change. It provides a firm foundation for considerations of the impacts of climate change on human and natural systems and ways to meet the challenge of climate change.” These are among the aspects assessed in the contributions of Working Group II and Working Group III to be released in March and April 2014. The IPCC Fifth Assessment Report cycle concludes with the publication of its Synthesis Report in October 2014.

“I would like to thank the Co-Chairs of Working Group I and the hundreds of scientists and experts who served as authors and review editors for producing a comprehensive and scientifically robust summary. I also express my thanks to the more than one thousand expert reviewers worldwide for contributing their expertise in preparation of this assessment,” said IPCC Chair Pachauri.

The Summary for Policymakers of the Working Group I contribution to the IPCC Fifth Assessment Report (WGI AR5) is available at www.climatechange2013.org or www.ipcc.ch.

]]>http://2celsius.net/ipcc-human-influence-on-climate-clear/feed/0UN climate talks in Bonn: Progress towards a deal in 2014http://2celsius.net/un-climate-talks-in-bonn-progress-towards-a-deal-in-2014/
http://2celsius.net/un-climate-talks-in-bonn-progress-towards-a-deal-in-2014/#respondSun, 16 Jun 2013 10:53:31 +0000http://2celsius.net/?p=664The United Nations climate change body said it has made concrete progress towards a new universal agreement on climate change during its latest round of talks which wrapped up today in Germany.

“This has been an important meeting because Governments are moving faster now from the stage of exploring options to designing and implementing solutions,” said Christiana Figueres, Executive Secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).

Christiana Figueres, UNFCCC Secretary General. Photo: UNFCCC

During the two-week talks in Bonn, participants focused on how to transform the world’s energy systems quickly enough towards low-carbon, including renewable energy, energy efficiency and the consideration of carbon capture and storage.

With the longer-term goal of a universal UN treaty on climate change by 2015 which would enter force by 2020, this latest round of talks pave the way for ministerial-level UN Climate Change Conference (COP-19) in Warsaw, Poland, starting on 12 November.

“Over the past 12 months, solid foundations have been laid under the process both toward the 2015 agreement and in raising pre-2020 ambition,” the co-chairs of a working group tasked to design a new agreement and to raise near-term global ambition to deal with climate change, Jayant Moreshver Mauskar and Harald Dovland said in a joint statement.

“As a result of the constructive and flexible engagement amongst Governments, nations now have a clearer idea of how to move to achieve demonstrable progress at the upcoming UN Climate Change Conference in Poland and beyond,” they said.

In Bonn, Governments also examined key elements for such a shift, including reducing investment risk for investors, public-private partnerships, a long-term, legally binding agreement and strong domestic institutions to deal effectively with finance in countries which receive support.

“To prevent our atmosphere turning permanently against us requires a continued, faster shift in those investment patterns and the policies and price signals that drive them,” said Ms. Figueres.

Participants also examined specific means to increase finance, technology and capacity-building for developing countries, and how this can link to the 2015 agreement.

Detailed and productive technical discussions took place under the Subsidiary Body for Scientific and Technological Advice (SBSTA), tasked to advise the UNFCCC.